I’m a bit late to jump on the Soleseife soap wagon! It has been on my list to do for awhile; I finally got the chance!

Soleseife soap is soap made with a salt brine. Salt is dissolved in the lye water instead of added at trace.

How to Make Soleseife or Brine Soap (Salt Water Soap)

This soap comes out super hard and white. Just like regular salt bars, this soap works great in single cavity molds.

soleseife soap

There have been some tutorials written about how to make these bars. Check them out:

CandleAndSoap.About.com – Soleseife or Brine/Salt Water Soap Recipe, Soleseife Soap with Coconut Milk

Thumb Print SoapSoleseife Soap Recipe – German Brine Soap

SaponistaSoleseife

I decided that I wanted to use equal parts lye and salt. It is very important to note that it takes a certain amount of water to dissolve each of these chemicals. Lye can make up about 50% of a solution. So for example a lye solution can be 50% lye and 50% water. Anything with more lye would probably fall out of solution and you would be left with lye undissolved.

Salt needs more water than lye to dissolve. Salt creates a saturated solution at about 26% depending on temperature. So a salt solution could be 26% salt and 74% water at the most.

When I ran my recipe through a lye calc, I needed 4.6 oz. lye. 4.6 oz. of lye needs at least 4.6 oz. of water to dissolve. I wanted to use 4.6 oz. of salt. I decided to go with a 20% salt solution so ended up with 4.6 oz. salt in 18.4 oz. water.

Many recipes use less salt, which would require less water. Using the amount of water that I calculated, the soap moved nice and slow but still came out super hard.

Like regular salt bars, I went with 100% coconut oil with a 20% superfat. Here is my final recipe:

Soleseife Soap Recipe

Coconut oil – 32 oz.
Lye – 4.6 oz.
Fine Sea Salt – 4.6 oz.
Water – 23 oz.

Essential Oil Blend
Lemon essential oil – 1 oz.
Pink grapefruit essential oil – 1 oz.
Lemongrass essential oil – 1 oz.

Individual cavity molds – I used the square silicone mold and round cupcake mold from Bramble Berry. This recipe made 12 squares and 3 rounds.

Let’s make soap!

Gear up in your goggles and gloves. New to soapmaking? Visit our basic tutorial here.

Step 1 – Weigh out 23 oz. of water. Weigh out 4.6 oz. of lye into a separate container.

Step 2 – Pour the lye into the water and stir until dissolved.

make a lye solution

Step 3 – Weigh out 4.6 oz. of fine sea salt and pour it into the hot lye solution. Stir to dissolve.

Step 4 – Weigh out 32 oz. of coconut oil. Melt.

coconut oil for soap

Step 5 – Once cool, weigh essential oils into melted coconut oil.

Step 6 – Sprinkle pink Himalayan salt into individual molds.

pink salt

Step 7 – Once the lye solution and oils are cooled to under 100F, pour the lye into the oils.

lye into oils

Step 8 – Stir to trace using a whisk or a stick blender. This moved slow enough because of the high water to use a stick blender.

stir to trace

traced soap

Step 9 – Pour into molds.

IMG_9608

Step 10 – Let sit overnight. Unmold the next day and cure for at least 4 weeks.

soleseife soap

Enjoy!

Happy Soaping!

Amanda Gail

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